


Finales And How They Expand The World Around You

by VolarFinch



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Changing POV, Fear, Gen, Meta that turned into Fiction, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, POV Third Person Omniscient, Points of View, Season 1 reactions, The Magnus Archives Season 1, Thought dump, season 1 ending, thought process
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-07 16:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21460822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolarFinch/pseuds/VolarFinch
Summary: It's always been there. Watching, waiting to consume. Stories are a part of its… feeding of sorts, right?It’s been watching him and the Institute since day one, but probably longer.First day he brushes off being watched as new job jitters. You can blame hallucinations on drugs and drinking. He has a point.  But then the feeling doesn't go away. Two days pass, then three, suddenly a whole week, and that gaze keeps following you.You don't know how long it follows you either.[Also known as: Jonathan Sims and the consistently growing feeling of being watched.]
Relationships: Beholding & Jonathan Sims
Kudos: 36





	1. Beholding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sockablock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sockablock/gifts).

> SPOILERS UP TO SEASON 1 OF THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES
> 
> Guuuuuess who got bullied into listening to TMA? Lmao no bullying but I did finally cave and listen. I really love it so far and just finished season one! This thought dump occurred in reaction to Jon admitting he has human feelings to Martin and that he was scared in episode 39, so it's not formatted great and is a little disorienting because of that.
> 
> Anyways enjoy my perspective of Jon's beginning descent into Beholding.
> 
> @sockablock this is for you

"Because I'm _ scared,_ Martin!"

It's always been there. Watching, waiting to consume. Stories are a part of its… feeding of sorts, right?

It’s been watching him and the Institute since day one, but probably longer.

First day he brushes off being watched as new job jitters. You can blame hallucinations on drugs and drinking. He has a point. But then the feeling doesn't go away. Two days pass, then three, suddenly a whole week, and that gaze keeps following you.

You don't know how long it follows you either. Is it just at the institute, or is that when you're most aware of it? Does it follow you home? Watch you eat and sleep?

Is that why he doesn't sleep? Not just the Prentiss situation, but the _ watching_.

The _ beholding. _

A week passes, then two, then a month, then several months, and that gaze _ still _ follows you, still _ watches _ you. And you don't know what will happen when you admit it's there, when you admit that these stories are real.

What will it do? Will it do anything? Will it do anything to you? To your coworkers? To Martin and Sasha and Tim? To Elias? To Rosie?

You don't know. Maybe you don't want to know. Knowing seems too dangerous––the thought of risking people for knowledge is too great, too scary. The thought alone feels like too much acceptance of your situations so you shove it down with more statements except they're only getting more and more pointed.

A string, two strings, several strings all tying together from the hundreds of statements you've read, all leading back to––to something. Just… something.

It’s not the _ something _ that watches you. Not entirely. But you can tell they're related.

Something wants you. Something wants you to want it,––to admit these stories are real and connected to _ something_. Whatever thing that haunts these people, whatever thing that has taken Jane Prentiss––it wants you to return its want, you know it, so you don't admit it. You play the skeptic because that feels safe, except it doesn't because you still believe these cases. Your words don't match your thoughts and feelings and whatever thing is beholding you _ knows. _

It _ knows_.

You're going to give in eventually. You're going to have no choice. Unless you up and leave this job, but based off what you've read, that won't stop whatever this thing is. It'll just keep on watching and watching and you'll have to give in, and at least you can buckle and cave around people who will believe you.

So you stay.

And you keep reading.

And you keep dismissing.

And then Jane Prentiss comes through the wall and attacks.

She––_ it? _––attacks your work and the people who will believe you when you fall. It's trying to take your support system. Trying to take you before you give into whatever watches, isn't it?

How long until you cave, Jon? 

How long until you behold whatever has been beholding you?


	2. Spiraling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon feels a chill go down his spine and sucks in a sharp breath. Leitner either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. It is a small change, but the change is there, Jon can just tell. The gaze follows him a little more closely. There’s a little more scrutiny, a little more earnest. He can feel it.
> 
> He tries to imagine whatever monster Rose Meyer wrote about in her statement, about the creature that followed her and drove her into insanity. He wonders if that’s what the Beholding looks like. Leitner would probably say he’s thinking too small.

Jon’s stomach drops at the word “Beholding”.

He’s never heard the words in this context, and his head is swimming with all the varying entities and their names and the ants. He’s just an ant. An ant staring into the large eye beholding him, tying him to this Institute. The Beholding. Watching.

He feels its gaze as Leitner talks about Gertrude and Michael and the Spiral and whatever else he has the need to run his mouth about. It doesn’t make sense, not really, but it… fits. Something in Jon’s brain seems to latch onto the words and engrain them into his head. The dots have been connected but he can’t see the picture. Just an eye. Just the Beholding.

Leitner said one of these “entities” was the Spiral. It changes your perceptions of reality until your sense of reality was gone. Jon understands that feeling now, sitting in his chair, Jorgen Leitner sitting in front of him. He feels like he’s spiraling––he’s felt like this for months. Spiraling deeper and deeper into his paranoia and fear, having to go home and try to sleep with that ever insistent  _ watching _ . It’s maddening. It’s enough to cause anyone to Spiral.

Gertrude had assistants. No one had told him that––he’d never  _ known _ that. Three of them, like his own. Sasha was gone, taken by whatever that changeling was. That Not-Sasha.

(He tries no to think too hard on Sasha for now because if he does he might break, and he can’t afford that now. He can still feel the tears in his eyes, threatening to spill over. Sasha was gone. He couldn’t even remember her face. Her voice. If there was a God above, how could he have never noticed? How did  _ Melanie _ notice and not him?)

That left two more. Tim and Martin.

Two more to be taken by whatever these  _ entities _ were.

He wonders if he could protect them from this. If he can manage the words to properly fire them. It would hurt Martin most of all, and Jon’s chest clenches at the idea, but it would keep them safe to be away. He can only hope so anyway. Maybe they would be drawn back to this horrible place, like moths to a flame.

Jon thinks of Agnus and wonders what her association is. He wonders if the Cult of the Lightless Flame and her and Gerard Keay are all connected.

If that’s the case, then moths to a flame don’t work. There’s no analogy for eyes though. For watching.

He thinks of Elias and if Elias  _ knew  _ when Jon hired on Sasha, Tim, and Martin. He wonders what Elias thinks of them––if he thinks they’re as disposable as Leitner thought his own assistants. 

If there is a God above, this is too much. Jon wishes all he had to worry about was whoever killed Gertrude (Elias, it was Elias, how couldn’t he have noticed, it makes sense, he could have tampered the tapes, that’s why it took Daisy and Basira so long). He wishes all he had to worry about was a bullet to the chest and head. It’d be a quicker and easier death than whatever spiral he’s going through now.

He thinks of that eye that appeared for a split second in the statement given by that nurse. How it just stared at him. Tim had joked that it followed them around and had done a funny voice and danced a bit. Jon had rolled his eyes, as had Sasha. Sasha had looked amused at least. Martin had just stared at the eye on the screen with fascination and interest.

He wonders what Martin would think of all of this.

Of course, seeing as he hasn’t told Martin anything over the past several months, he would be just as confused, if not more.

Jon feels a chill go down his spine and sucks in a sharp breath. Leitner either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. It is a small change, but the change is there, Jon can just  _ tell _ . The gaze follows him a little more closely. There’s a little more scrutiny, a little more earnest. He can feel it.

He tries to imagine whatever monster Rose Meyer wrote about in her statement, about the creature that followed her and drove her into insanity. He wonders if that’s what the Beholding looks like. Leitner would probably say he’s thinking too small.

Jon’s body is on autopilot as he gets up out of his seat, fumbling for his lighter and cigarette he keeps on hand. His hands are shaking so much so he almost drops his lighter several times on the way out. He wonders if that would be a good thing. Last time he thought he’d do something good, he destroyed the only thing keeping Not-Sasha from killing his staff and himself.

He tries not to think of the said look on Leitner’s face as he watches him go, full of sympathy and pity as his world got much, much larger. He tries to just think about the effects that cigarettes have on the human lungs and how it might end this situation a little quicker if he inhales a little more deeply.

The cigarette doesn’t bring the same calm it used to.

Then again, Jon doubts anything will bring him calm again after today.

(When he walks back into his office and sees Leitner, slumped and dead and bleeding against the desk much like Gertrude was, he feels that thin line he’s been walking grow even thinner. His manic, panicked laughter sounds too much like Michael’s, wrong and distorted. He leaves before he even realizes what he’s doing, just walking and walking and then running and running until the world spirals out of control and Jon’s world goes black as unconsciousness takes him. A part of him hopes he doesn’t wake up.

He’s not that lucky.)


End file.
